Huge Ajax's Arc

Chapter 9 of 619

Morning broke gray over the coast road. They rode out at first light. Ajax took point, Grayson at his shoulder. Marco rode behind them, then Chalam and Tucker. Asher and Elara brought up the rear. An hour in, Elara nudged her horse up alongside Asher's. Ajax heard her laugh before he heard the words. "Your turn," she said. Asher glanced at her. "My turn what." "Grayson wouldn't flex for me. You will." "Will I." "Shirt off. Just the one arm. I've been staring at the back of your head all morning. Give me something." Ajax looked over his shoulder. Grayson kept his eyes on the road. Tucker slowed his horse to listen. Marco half-turned in the saddle, waiting to see what Asher would do. Asher unbuttoned his shirt without stopping his horse. He pulled it off and folded it over his saddle horn. The gold chain sat against his chest hair. He lifted his right arm and made a fist. "That one?" he said. Elara grinned. "That one." He flexed. The bicep rose. He held it for her, easy, no rush. "Satisfied?" "Not even close." "Then you'll have to keep riding behind me." "I planned to." Tucker laughed. Marco shook his head and turned back to the road. Chalam said nothing. Grayson said nothing. Ajax watched a moment longer. Asher caught his eye and shrugged, still shirtless, still smiling at the healer who owed him no oath. Ajax turned forward again. Grayson had shut Elara down. Asher had opened himself up. Two men, two answers, and neither of them Ajax's to give. He let it stand. They rode the rest of the morning that way. Asher put his shirt back on near noon, when the wind off the water got sharp. Elara stopped teasing him and started asking real questions. Where he was from. Where the chain came from. He answered some and not others. By mid-afternoon the trees thinned. The road climbed a low rise. At the top, Ajax reined up. The coast opened below them. Gray water to the horizon. A curve of rocky shore. Wind pushed the grass flat around the horses' legs. Down the slope, a shelf of stone jutted into the surf — flat ground above the tide line, cliffs at the back, a stream cutting down to the sea. The place he had been riding toward since Southern Oak. "There," Ajax said. Grayson leaned on his saddle horn and looked. "That's the ground." "That's it." Marco came up beside them. He did not speak. He looked at the shelf a long time, and Ajax remembered what had brought him — a god, a grandmother, a thing taken from the family. Whatever Marco was looking for, he thought it was down there. Tucker whistled low. "No town. No men. No timber cut." "No," Ajax said. Elara pulled up last. She looked at the empty shore and then at Ajax. "So," she said. "Now what." Ajax touched the chain at his throat and started down the slope.